The holiday season is over, the NPD sales data for January 2008 is in and we see a common theme: Nintendo rules the show. While Sony continues to try and persuade gamers that the PlayStation 3 is in a completely different gaming category, statistic gathering companies like NPD put ’em all in one big basket.
It makes sense for Sony to try to push themselves away from being classified with the Wii console because it makes them look bad. We’re all equal gamers here, there is no need to break into more sub-categories when only three consoles vying for top spot. Many folks (including us) criticize the slow adoption rate of Wii games, yet they steal top software sales spots as well.
- Wii — 679,200
- Nintendo DS — 510,800
- Xbox 360 — 309,000
- PlayStation 3 — 203,200
- PlayStation Portable — 172,300
- PlayStation 2 — 101,200
Thankfully Sony’s PlayStation 3 product took top spot on their hardware list, so that’s not so bad. Sadly, combining all Sony’s hardware still doesn’t meet the units of the Wii.
On the software sales front, Nintendo took six of the top ten positions including position’s one, two and three. Wii Fit takes number one position with an insane 777,000 units sold. The only closest product to Wii Fit was Wii Play (still!) with 415,000 units sold. Place four was held by a 360 title, Left 4 Dead sold 243,000 units.
Although many gamers haven’t turned on their Wii in ages, there is no doubt the market is red hot for Wii. At this point, we’re all wondering how long it will last — any predictions? It’s already been a long time.
@Duke Nukem Forever review fiasco:
This one is almost ‘no comment’. The nasty side is what Jordan said (except foe Jonah I can’t yet distinguish your voices, sorry if I mix you up): they don’t mind blacklisting, they just don’t want it to be public.
@ Apple will be the games industry in 10 years:
You can even devise a control scheme for touch based interfaces, but!
Just like console controllers, a mouse and keyboard using player will best one using a console controller, in competitive gaming.
Jonah, I’m with you on the real books vs. kindle. Don’t get me wrong guys, that’s a device that I like, but it doesn’t hold a kandle 😛 to a real book.
@ No need for PS4, PS3 now hitting its stride:
Erm, hello, PS3 is hacked? Piracy will be as rampant on PS3 as is on PC? PS3 might become a very unattractive platform to develop for? (hard to code for it and with it’s DRM system exposed for all to pirate your product).
😀 Jonah, thanks for pointing out misspellings, it’s useful to me.
@Question of the Week:
I do care what it says in the review. I do want to read if a certain aspect is flawed: perhaps it is a feature that interests me, and in that case I’ll skip the game.
As for the score versus the entire contents, well, it actually depends on the value of the score.
If it’s below 5, then I don’t even bother to read the review. The score weights 100%.
If it’s up until 7, the score weights 50%. Above 7, it’s really up to the contents of the review, not the score: weight drops to almost 0%.
Just to let you know that things in Australia aren’t that bad. If one looks around abit you can get a good deal on games even if they are brand new. Granted prices have been $110 for some games but with some skill you can get it imported from the UK with shipping for nearly half the price. I havn’t brought a game from a major Australian retailer for some time now. Feel sorry for those who do ouch.